interview
Nicolas Puschmann
“I am a living person”
Nicolas Puschmann and Vadim Garbuzov
© Getty Images
Nicolas Puschmann is currently swinging across the floor of “Let’s Dance” – for the first time with a male dance partner. In an interview with GALA he talks about courage, seduction and his roller coaster weight.
He has often been the first – and this time he could be the best. Nicolas Puschmann, 30, was the first gay man to look for and find his great love in the dating show “Prince Charming”. Now he and his dance partner Vadim Garbuzov, 33, are the first male couple on “Let’s Dance” (RTL, Fridays, 8:15 pm).
The jury and the audience are thrilled – alongside Valentina Pahde, 26, and Rúrik Gíslason, 33, Nicolas is the top favorite. “Of course I would like to end up at the top,” he says combative to GALA. “But everyone in the show dances their hearts out on the floor, so the competition remains exciting.”
Nicolas Puschmann in a GALA interview
GALA: Was it clear to you from the start that you would go out onto the floor with a man ?:
Nicolas Puschmann: Originally I wanted to dance with a woman because I like the look of the flying sequins, for example. While researching, I found my current dance partner Vadim, who was already dancing with a man on TV in Austria in 2011. At first I found that very hard to get used to – like many others probably too.
What made you rethink?
I thought to myself: In “Prince Charming” I fought to make sure that a kiss between two men is not something that you have to look away at. So I wanted to get the audience used to two dancing men.
“I haven’t been on the scales for a while”
How are the reactions?
Consistently positive. A spectator wrote to me that she drove to the Catholic Church in her village to hoist the rainbow flag when she heard that the Pope did not want to bless homosexual couples. She wouldn’t have done that before our appearances on “Let’s Dance”, as she says.
You currently train around ten hours a day. The pounds are sure to fall off.
I haven’t been on the scales for a long time. But I notice it on the waistband and also optically. The Easter days were of course a bit inconvenient. I drank way too much eggnog. (laughs)
The subject of weight has been with you for a while. Before you could show your six-pack at “Prince Charming”, you had a few extra pounds on it. What made you change something?
My photos in underwear. They were terrible, very bad. Then I ate very reduced. Today I’m trying to find a balance.
“I am a living person”
Because of the yo-yo effect?
Absolutely. Things went downhill with lard biscuits and mulled wine at the Christmas market. And from February, March it was always: starve, starve, starve plus a lot of sport. In the summer I was slim again. But that was just too extreme.
How do you manage to maintain your weight in the meantime?
I try to eat a healthy and balanced diet, do crossfit and go running. But I also treat myself to something on the weekend – I’m too much of a living person for that. I like to drink a wine or something to snack on, because life is supposed to be fun too. In the end, just paying off makes you unhappy.